DIMOCK TOWNSHIP, PA — Each week, Ray Kemble drives his pickup truck a dozen miles into Montrose to purchase water.
The well on his property in Dimock Township just isn’t an option. It’s polluted, he said, by natural gas drilling here in Susquehanna County.
So when the news came this week that Coterra Energy, formerly Cabot Oil & Gas, can resume drilling under this rural township, he looked at it with a wary eye.
"You can only punch so many holes in the ground before mother Earth is gonna turn and tell you to screw off," Kemble said.
The Houston-based Coterra has received the go ahead from state regulators to drill 11 gas wells under Dimock Township, a hotspot in the country’s largest natural gas field.
About three miles away from Kemble’s home, in Springville Township, we found construction taking place at a Coterra well pad.
In a statement, the company said that, “Coterra is committed to safe and responsible operations wherever we work. With the support of landowners, Coterra has applied for and received permits to drill new wells at some point in the future.”
Cabot was banned from drilling here more than a decade ago because investigators found the company allowed methane to leak into the local aquifer and then failed to make good on its promise to restore the water supply.
They remain prohibited from drilling within a 9-mile moratorium area. However, they plan to drill horizontally underneath the community.
Last year, the company pleaded no contest to a criminal charge. That plea agreement requires them to foot a more than $16 million bill for construction of a new public water supply to be built by Pennsylvania American Water.
A spokeswoman for the water company said construction may begin sometime in 2025 or 2026.
In 2020, former state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, now the governor, filed charges and said he would hold the company accountable.
"I am here today to remind those fracking companies that the people of Pennsylvania come first," he said at the time. "Our right to clean air and pure water comes first."
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection directed an inquiry to Shapiro’s office, which did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Some Susquehanna County residents like Craig Stevens, of Silver Lake Township, said the resuming of Coterra's drilling felt like a "stab in the back."
“How do you help people get clean water if you’re gonna let them drill again," he said.